Last month I fell and broke some bones. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention a thing like that here, because broken bones are not everybody’s idea of a treasure trove of socio-political humor. I only mention it now because the breaks in question have had amusing consequences indicative of socio-political realities. I went to Harborview for treatment.
Due to a pre-existing mental condition (being nuts) I waited two days to go to Harborview ER. Forget what I ever said about Harborview, just now. I love Harborview ER. I love sitting on the bench for an hour waiting for triage. I love triage. I love waiting half an hour after triage to check-in. I love waiting another half-hour to be taken to a bed, probably in a hall next to a screaming man strapped and manacled to a gurney. I love waiting another half-hour for a doctor to see me for the first time, while I listen to a man at the other end of the hall scream “I am Hitler!” or, alternatively, “I am the light!” repeatedly for five minutes at a time.
I love being seen by random doctors whose names I can’t remember, there being as many of them as dancers in a Busby Berkeley spectacular. Somewhere well into the fourth hour I was led to the X-ray room, where twenty or thirty X-rays were taken, and all I could think was, “That’s a lot of film there. I hope they know somebody’s going to have to pay for all that film.” Then I waited some more.
Finally, a verdict: “Good news, Mr. Browning! You have contusions, swelling, lacerations, and (I forget the fourth thing), but you have no broken bones! Just get a tetanus shot on the way out and go home, and nature will slowly heal you, and the pain will subside by April!”
The next day I checked my phone messages, and found out that even as I was on my way home a doctor I hadn’t even met yet had called me to tell me they made a mistake reading my X-rays and my wrist was broken after all, so come back!
So I came back and I told the people in ER I was just continuing treatment from the day before, and they said, no problem: Just wait on the bench for triage, wait then to check-in, wait then to be led in, listen to the other patients scream, and wait then for a doctor to appear. Which I did as directed, so only four hours later I got the splint on my right arm I should have gotten the previous day. Then they said, go home, you’re done.
The next day I found out I had a phone call from yet another doctor even as I was making my way home. They had missed a break of my other arm. Please come back.
So I came back and I told the people in ER I was just continuing treatment from the day before, and the day before that, and they said, no problem: Just wait on the bench for triage, wait then to check-in, wait then to be led in, etc., and I said, “Right, so I’m living in an Early Medieval Irish folk story,” and I did it all as directed, and four plus hours later I had a new sling for my left arm, and effusive apologies from at least two new doctors I didn’t remember. I told them there was no need to apologize, this is material!
So right now you should be asking, “Alright, what’s your socio-political point, Wes?”
Well, I could say that my experience is just indicative of the state of health care in this country, but I won’t go there, because I actually appreciate the treatment, and I know mistakes happen to the best of us. Hey, I didn’t plan to fall, either.
But, think about this: what if I’d had no home to go to, and no voice mail to retrieve?
Showing posts with label triage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label triage. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Way of the Dodo
I’m on a mission to call attention to the stupidity and cowardice and inadequacies of human beings as a whole.
Many people in the world make it part of their religion to tout the Glories of Humankind. Humankind, also stupidly called Man, as if the half that birthed and suckled it never existed, is supposed to be created in God’s image. We are supposed to be the Pinnacle of Creation. Our Superior Intelligence is presented as one proof of this alleged fact.
Yes, we are undeniably the most intelligent species on this planet, when we have had our coffee. But we humans also account for all the most grievous stupidity that inflicts Earth, and the total amount of stupid human behavior outweighs the total amount of actual intelligent human behavior by at least a factor of ten, in both the amount of behavior generated and in the consequences incurred.
If a creature is a genius one hour every day, but throughout the remainder of the day the same creature is so stupid it can’t figure out how to exist without persistently contributing significantly to the successful ongoing dismantling of the biosphere of a planet 40 million meters in circumference, then that creature is – in sum total -- dreadfully, pathetically, and laughably, stupid.
If we were created in God’s image, then God is stupider than the dodo. The dodo only managed to get itself extinct by being so stupid as to trust human beings. Humans are so stupid as to be utterly untrustworthy, even toward defenseless dodos. That’s stupider, and if it continues, humans will not only be as extinct as dodos already are, but they will have made of themselves much bigger jackasses in the course of becoming so, by taking down everybody else around them in the process except for an assortment of lucky germs and insects.
This rant is brought to you by a man typing in the morning of March 20, 2006, contemplating the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, a war which was never urgently necessary, whose “victory” is costing more than $80,000,000,000 a year, not counting deaths, anguish, and other mere secondary costs.
This rant also comes from a guy who regularly hears people in the local homeless service community, some of them exceptionally intelligent people, when they have had their coffee, say that we need to practice “triage” to solve homelessness in King County and the rest of the country.
French wool traders used “triage” to mean “choose” or “select.” Napoleon’s surgeon used it in a medical context to describe the systematic prioritization of battle wounded for medical care, under emergency conditions, when there is a shortage of medical resources, in the form of personnel, supplies, space, or time.
Where is the shortage of resources to solve homelessness, in the form of personnel, supplies, space, or time, in a country that can afford an Iraq War at more than $80,000,000,000 a year for three or for ten years, or however long it may take, whenever it feels itself in the freaking mood?
The ridiculousness of the situation we find ourselves in was brought home to me yesterday afternoon. I was waiting for a bus in front of the King County Courthouse. As the bus approached, a young man walked across the street to my side, slowly, and steadily, directly in the path of the oncoming bus, deliberately forcing the driver to brake for him 40 feet before the stop, endangering the safety of the passengers on board.
The man got on the bus, and the driver asked him why he had walked in front of her bus. His defiant answer was, “I have a Purple Heart”.
That pretty much summed up the stupidity of the situation we’re in. Question: Why are we squandering our nation’s resources in Iraq? Answer: 9-11. It’s our country’s collective Purple Heart, and in our collective stupidity, it justifies any and all cowardly recklessness.
We are thus so much a part of Humanity.
Many people in the world make it part of their religion to tout the Glories of Humankind. Humankind, also stupidly called Man, as if the half that birthed and suckled it never existed, is supposed to be created in God’s image. We are supposed to be the Pinnacle of Creation. Our Superior Intelligence is presented as one proof of this alleged fact.
Yes, we are undeniably the most intelligent species on this planet, when we have had our coffee. But we humans also account for all the most grievous stupidity that inflicts Earth, and the total amount of stupid human behavior outweighs the total amount of actual intelligent human behavior by at least a factor of ten, in both the amount of behavior generated and in the consequences incurred.
If a creature is a genius one hour every day, but throughout the remainder of the day the same creature is so stupid it can’t figure out how to exist without persistently contributing significantly to the successful ongoing dismantling of the biosphere of a planet 40 million meters in circumference, then that creature is – in sum total -- dreadfully, pathetically, and laughably, stupid.
If we were created in God’s image, then God is stupider than the dodo. The dodo only managed to get itself extinct by being so stupid as to trust human beings. Humans are so stupid as to be utterly untrustworthy, even toward defenseless dodos. That’s stupider, and if it continues, humans will not only be as extinct as dodos already are, but they will have made of themselves much bigger jackasses in the course of becoming so, by taking down everybody else around them in the process except for an assortment of lucky germs and insects.
This rant is brought to you by a man typing in the morning of March 20, 2006, contemplating the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, a war which was never urgently necessary, whose “victory” is costing more than $80,000,000,000 a year, not counting deaths, anguish, and other mere secondary costs.
This rant also comes from a guy who regularly hears people in the local homeless service community, some of them exceptionally intelligent people, when they have had their coffee, say that we need to practice “triage” to solve homelessness in King County and the rest of the country.
French wool traders used “triage” to mean “choose” or “select.” Napoleon’s surgeon used it in a medical context to describe the systematic prioritization of battle wounded for medical care, under emergency conditions, when there is a shortage of medical resources, in the form of personnel, supplies, space, or time.
Where is the shortage of resources to solve homelessness, in the form of personnel, supplies, space, or time, in a country that can afford an Iraq War at more than $80,000,000,000 a year for three or for ten years, or however long it may take, whenever it feels itself in the freaking mood?
The ridiculousness of the situation we find ourselves in was brought home to me yesterday afternoon. I was waiting for a bus in front of the King County Courthouse. As the bus approached, a young man walked across the street to my side, slowly, and steadily, directly in the path of the oncoming bus, deliberately forcing the driver to brake for him 40 feet before the stop, endangering the safety of the passengers on board.
The man got on the bus, and the driver asked him why he had walked in front of her bus. His defiant answer was, “I have a Purple Heart”.
That pretty much summed up the stupidity of the situation we’re in. Question: Why are we squandering our nation’s resources in Iraq? Answer: 9-11. It’s our country’s collective Purple Heart, and in our collective stupidity, it justifies any and all cowardly recklessness.
We are thus so much a part of Humanity.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
No Cut-sies!
People are seeing silver linings in the Katrina disaster.
This is NOT ME saying this, this is Archbishop Paul Cordes, the Pope’s envoy bringing Vatican aid to Katrina victims: “… this event [brings with it] the hope, for many citizens, of seeing that the world is greater than the United States.” Alright! The world is Number One!
President Mugabe of Zimbabwe likewise finds hope in the disaster, in comparing his country’s circumstances to ours.
Actually, the number of people now homeless in Zimbabwe and living in squalid camps as a result of Mugabe’s interestingly named Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Trash) is on the order of the number of Americans made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. That, in a country less than one twenty-fifth the population of the US, makes the impact on Zimbabwe life of Murambatsvina equivalent to 25 Katrinas for us.
Still, after Katrina, Mugabe says his people are “very happy”, and all is well in the state of Zimbabwe, and he barred the UN homeless agency from helping his people, telling them instead to go to America and teach us Americans not to neglect ours.
By the way, Mugabe has repeatedly justified tearing down poor people’s shanties by pointing to American and European governments’ similar habit of bulldozing tent cities. If we can do it once, why can’t he do it a thousand times?
Meanwhile our own government has used the Katrina disaster to make our pre-existing homelessness vanish from the policy map. HUD has required local housing authorities everywhere to house Katrina victims in all available open housing, rather than people who were already homeless and on long frozen waiting lists, without saying “please.”
How about that? The homeless people who didn’t lose their homes to a 2005 hurricane starting with the letter K don’t count anymore! We don’t care how long you’ve been on a waiting list! What pre-existing homelessness?
Some have explained this by saying that the recently homeless Katrina victims can get on their feet faster than the “long-term” homeless, because they haven’t been homeless long enough to have become “difficult to house.” This is one of the finest crocks I have seen. It is proved to be a crock by the fact that HUD’s mandate doesn’t only apply to those homeless in the long-term, but also to people made homeless all across the country YESTERDAY, including victims of yesterday’s apartment fires.
I wouldn’t mind if we were talking about necessary triage here. If there were truly limited resources to solve homelessness than why not give priority on some arbitrary basis, like they did with the draft lottery? Instead of “all Katrina victims go to the front of the line,” how about “all homeless people born on a Saturday go to the front of the line,” or “age before beauty,” or “paper, rocks, scissors,” or “let’s make that two out of three?”
But it isn’t like that. The resources are there and they have been there for decades. No one needs to be homeless. We only have homelessness because this country has chosen to turn its back on it, for the sheer sake of esthetics.
For example, in Ocala, Florida, there were people living in a housing subdivision who offered to put up evacuees in their homes. HUD wouldn’t have to find housing for them! But when the housing association heard about it they enforced a rule against housing the homeless in the subdivision.
It would spoil the subdivision’s culture, you see. Why, next they’ll want to paint their houses purple.
Likewise the reason George Bush doesn’t want us to raise taxes to pay for either the Iraq War or hurricane cleanup boils down to esthetics: If the rich had to pay higher taxes, it would make this land a cesspit where most rich people could only afford one mansion apiece, and where their children might be forced to baby-sit to buy Nintendos.
That’s just plain ugly!
This is NOT ME saying this, this is Archbishop Paul Cordes, the Pope’s envoy bringing Vatican aid to Katrina victims: “… this event [brings with it] the hope, for many citizens, of seeing that the world is greater than the United States.” Alright! The world is Number One!
President Mugabe of Zimbabwe likewise finds hope in the disaster, in comparing his country’s circumstances to ours.
Actually, the number of people now homeless in Zimbabwe and living in squalid camps as a result of Mugabe’s interestingly named Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Trash) is on the order of the number of Americans made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. That, in a country less than one twenty-fifth the population of the US, makes the impact on Zimbabwe life of Murambatsvina equivalent to 25 Katrinas for us.
Still, after Katrina, Mugabe says his people are “very happy”, and all is well in the state of Zimbabwe, and he barred the UN homeless agency from helping his people, telling them instead to go to America and teach us Americans not to neglect ours.
By the way, Mugabe has repeatedly justified tearing down poor people’s shanties by pointing to American and European governments’ similar habit of bulldozing tent cities. If we can do it once, why can’t he do it a thousand times?
Meanwhile our own government has used the Katrina disaster to make our pre-existing homelessness vanish from the policy map. HUD has required local housing authorities everywhere to house Katrina victims in all available open housing, rather than people who were already homeless and on long frozen waiting lists, without saying “please.”
How about that? The homeless people who didn’t lose their homes to a 2005 hurricane starting with the letter K don’t count anymore! We don’t care how long you’ve been on a waiting list! What pre-existing homelessness?
Some have explained this by saying that the recently homeless Katrina victims can get on their feet faster than the “long-term” homeless, because they haven’t been homeless long enough to have become “difficult to house.” This is one of the finest crocks I have seen. It is proved to be a crock by the fact that HUD’s mandate doesn’t only apply to those homeless in the long-term, but also to people made homeless all across the country YESTERDAY, including victims of yesterday’s apartment fires.
I wouldn’t mind if we were talking about necessary triage here. If there were truly limited resources to solve homelessness than why not give priority on some arbitrary basis, like they did with the draft lottery? Instead of “all Katrina victims go to the front of the line,” how about “all homeless people born on a Saturday go to the front of the line,” or “age before beauty,” or “paper, rocks, scissors,” or “let’s make that two out of three?”
But it isn’t like that. The resources are there and they have been there for decades. No one needs to be homeless. We only have homelessness because this country has chosen to turn its back on it, for the sheer sake of esthetics.
For example, in Ocala, Florida, there were people living in a housing subdivision who offered to put up evacuees in their homes. HUD wouldn’t have to find housing for them! But when the housing association heard about it they enforced a rule against housing the homeless in the subdivision.
It would spoil the subdivision’s culture, you see. Why, next they’ll want to paint their houses purple.
Likewise the reason George Bush doesn’t want us to raise taxes to pay for either the Iraq War or hurricane cleanup boils down to esthetics: If the rich had to pay higher taxes, it would make this land a cesspit where most rich people could only afford one mansion apiece, and where their children might be forced to baby-sit to buy Nintendos.
That’s just plain ugly!
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